Sliders, Knobs, and Dials That Give Your Tablet a Physical Interface

Florian Born's Modulares Interfaces is an exploration of how to turn a touchscreen into a physical interface. Florian Born

Florian Born's Modulares Interfaces is an exploration of how to turn a touchscreen into a physical interface.

Florian Born

These little aluminum controllers (in this case a knob) connect to your tablet via a magnetized frame and transmit information to the screen underneath. Florian Born

These little aluminum controllers (in this case a knob) connect to your tablet via a magnetized frame and transmit information to the screen underneath.

Florian Born

The idea is that these physical controllers will act as input devices for applications on the desktop. Florian Born

The idea is that these physical controllers will act as input devices for applications on the desktop.

Florian Born

Something like this slider could give users more precision when making or editing music. Florian Born

Something like this slider could give users more precision when making or editing music.

Florian Born

Right now, the interface is just a prototype, but you can imagine how useful building a library of physical controllers could be to any creative act. Florian Born

Right now, the interface is just a prototype, but you can imagine how useful building a library of physical controllers could be to any creative act.

Florian Born

Using a touchscreen device requires a certain amount of hand-eye coordination. It’s not exactly golf, but there’s still a disconnect between your brain, your eyes and your fingers, as anyone who’s attempted a creative act on the glassy screens knows. Worse yet, touchscreens have a serious tactile deficiency. Whether you’re playing with a virtual slider or spinning a digital knob, your fingertips only feel glass.

“You can’t use a turning knob properly on a digital interface,” says German designer Florian Born. “So I thought maybe we have to rethink this idea and use real buttons and sliders and knobs to use these digital interfaces correctly.”

For a recent school project, Born created Modulares Interface, a collection of aluminum knobs, sliders and buttons that replace multi-touch interaction with actual, physical controllers. These modular pieces latch onto the screen via a magnetized frame and transmit information to the screen underneath.

Using custom software, the controllers act as input devices and communicate with applications on a desktop. In the video, you see Born assigning positions to each of the controllers before clicking the metal bits into place like a puzzle. He then fires up a DJ app and uses the knobs and sliders to make and edit music, like you might with an actual mixer. The music application is fairly obvious, but haptic feedback could be equally as helpful for refining parameters in visually based applications, too. Just think about how easy it would be to create a perfect mix of colors using physical sliders, Born says, or how twisting a knob could dial a precisely-sized paintbrush in an app like Photoshop.

Right now, Born’s prototype is really just a provocation that highlights the shortcomings of our flat, multi-touch world. But you can imagine the potential in building up a library of controllers that extends beyond the knob, button and slider. Think custom game controllers, bespoke artistic tools, or even a tiny command station laid out specifically for a quadcopter. In all of these cases, physical controls could offer a huge advantage beyond greater precision: When you can feel controls under your fingertips, you’re free to take your eyes off the screen and watch the thing you’re actually controlling.

[h/t: Creative Applications]